


All Hail the House Atrashax

by gallifreyburning



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-02 15:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17266586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: Backing up my random Jupiter Ascending meta and drabbles from tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

In  _Jupiter Ascending_ , Stinger tells Jupiter that Caine attacked an Entitled, and the only reason he’s still alive is because Stinger (as his CO) took responsibility for the crime. Even if he wasn’t put down, Caine still ended up courtmartialled and in space jail, for who knows how long (maybe years? probably at least as long as Stinger and Kiza slummed it on Earth), until Titus Abrasax fished him out.

(I have a lot of thoughts about the moment in the movie when Titus puts Caine into this tiny cell on his ship, and Caine’s feelings about the prospect of being re-incarcerated, but that’s another post. [eta: oops I have no self-control, that “other post” turned into [a full-fledged fic](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F3464324%2Fchapters%2F7602509&t=NTc4YzM4MzRjMDdlMjY4NDEyYTIzYmE4MjcyNDRmY2RmYzhiYmU3YSxTMnc0UkFYUQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AooHiQzzhwwlaHsdVpq1I8w&p=http%3A%2F%2Fgallifreyburning.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F111899851419%2Fin-jupiter-ascending-stinger-tells-jupiter-that&m=0)])

When Jupiter asks him why he attacked an Entitled, Caine replies that he doesn’t know. He says that he “went blank,” it was a “defect of his genome engineering." 

But what if that particular behavior was an  _intentional_  defect? What if Caine was bred and biologically programmed for the sole purpose of assassinating one particular member of the Entitled? 

It would explain why the splicer who created him used less desirable genetic material (ie albino, as per Stinger’s definition of "defective,” and Stinger mentioning that the splicer had to sell runt-puppy Caine to the Legion at a loss). The splicer wasn’t creating a warrior meant for long-term service, he was creating a simple single-use weapon. 

It’s a long-game assassination, breeding a living being to be a weapon like that, but if the individual who commissioned Caine’s splicer was  _also_  an Entitled who could live for a hundred millennium, then waiting 20-30 years for an assassination tool to come to maturity would be like the blink of an eye.

Caine had no purpose, past his genetic programming to kill a single member of the Entitled. Everything in him angled toward that end. He was driven by his very DNA to excel at soldiering, to exceed everyone else in ferocity, to take to weapons and fighting like a fish to water. All of it served one purpose, hinged on one moment: the assassination. And after that moment, Caine’s biological reason for existence was over. He was put in a dark hole to die. He had no control over himself, his life, or his fate.

At least, not until Titus yanked Caine out of that space-jail cell and told him a lie (after all, lies are the only reason Titus gets up in the morning): that Caine would earn his freedom if he fetched single female terses from Earth. I don’t think Titus genuinely intended to set him free or clear Stinger of the criminal conviction or reinstate anyone to the Legion. But he needed a weapon to get a job done, and Caine is a weapon if there ever was one.

In spite of Titus’s lies, the job earned Caine his freedom anyway. His freedom, and a new reason for existence.

What if in the sequel we’re probably never going to get (WOE),  _Jupiter Ascending 2: Werewolf Boogaloo_ , that same splicer is hired to biologically engineer an assassin to kill Jupiter. During the course of dealing with this new threat (and getting a handle on her space empire and destroying space capitalism), Jupiter and Caine track down the original splicer, and find out who hired that person to create Caine – was it Kalique? Titus? I like the idea of it being Seraphi tbh, a plot to kill one of her Entitled rivals that didn’t come to fruition before Balem murdered her.

idk I’m not going anywhere in particular with this, I’m just thinking a lot about this movie and all its dangling plot threads, because the world the Wachowskis created was really interesting.

 


	2. Meta and Speculation

Bear with me, because I keep thinking about this (mostly theoretical) Rube Goldberg series of events that could’ve framed the actual plot of Jupiter Ascending. The melodramatic antics of the House Abrasax delight me no end. 

[Seraphi commissions a splicer to create an assassin to kill her son, Balem. Caine is bred as a weapon, genetically pre-programmed to kill Balem on sight (or with a trigger word, or w/e).](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/post/111899851419/in-jupiter-ascending-stinger-tells-jupiter-that) For funsies, let’s also say that the splicer builds in DNA-coded defaults for this particular splice-assassin to protect Seraphi, because she throws in an extra ten space-bucks for tip.

Pre-programmed assassin Caine encounters Balem in a public setting. (That time Balem got his nails done at that little place in the mall, and Caine’s space-army regiment was on mall-cop duty.) Caine follows his programming, goes ballistic and rips out Balem’s throat, but doesn’t manage to assassinate him. (lbr a bomb or gun would’ve been more efficient, but Seraphi wanted Balem to die an intimate death, so she went for the most sensual assassination method - the Abrasax family are detail-oriented assholes like that.)

Balem finds out Seraphi commissioned the assassin-splice, and he murders his mother in retribution. (Or alternately, Balem murders Seraphi  _before_ her assassination plan comes to fruition, Caine still obeys his programming and rips out Balem’s throat at the first opportunity even though Seraphi is already dead. Either way, we end up at the same place.)

(“Assassin” doesn’t look like a real word anymore. Also this is getting long, imma put in a cut)

Caine is thrown into space-jail (aka “Deadland,” which is a slightly less evocative prison name than “Cosmo-traz” or “Space-kaban”. Sadly, “Thunderdome” was already taken). The Aegis intends to put him down, but Stinger intervenes and gets him life in prison instead of the death sentence. 

Titus “I blew my inheritance on hookers and all I got was this lousy std” Abrasax somehow finds out about Jupiter Jones’s existence. (His Magic Mirror informing him he’s no longer the fairest of them all, because Jupiter holds that title now? Who knows.) His mother has been reincarnated on a backwater third-world farm planet, one that Balem happened to inherit from Seraphi. This same planet  _also also_  happens to be ripe for harvest, and would afford Titus at least a few hundred more antigravity sex orgies.

Titus calls a sibling family meeting and super-subtly asks his brother Balem if he can have the Earth. Balem wheezes a laugh in his face, then flounces off to whisper-shout at his minions elsewhere. 

The direct approach was a failure, so Titus immediately implements his Plan B, which is complicated enough to make Yzma jealous. He fishes Caine out of space-jail –  _intentionally_ picks Caine,  _his brother’s attempted assassin_. Surely there are thousands of convicts available for bounty hunter duty. This choice can’t be a coincidence. 

Titus offers Caine a pardon in exchange for fetching Jupiter, so that Titus can indulge all his Oedipal impulses by marrying and murdering his reincarnated mother, in order to inherit all her estates (including Earth). Titus figures that if Caine happens to run into Balem at some point during these escapades, and Caine goes into a pre-programmed throat-ripping rampage (once more with feeling!), that would be a bonus. 

Meanwhile on Earth, Caine sees Jupiter for the first time, and his “protect Seraphi” programming kicks in. He realizes he hasn’t just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, but that he’s landed  _beyond_ the fire, in a universe-wide, Abrasax-fuelled inferno. He ditches his commitment to Titus asap, hauling ass to his Space Marshal former-friend, Stinger. After all, Stinger yanked Caine’s space-rollerblades out of the flames last time, surely he’ll do it again.

blah blah blah, the actual plot of the movie that we saw on the big screen all comes to pass

After the credits roll, at some point down the line, Jupiter and Caine discover that Seraphi was responsible for Caine’s creation. They also discover that Caine was bred to feel protective toward Seraphi (and ergo Jupiter). Cue massive existential and relationship angst for everybody. 

All hail the [House Atrashax](http://vyragosa.tumblr.com/post/112085609834/aurimynonys-something-like-that).


	3. Mr Night's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

 

[ ](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/image/112319426744)

 

This entire movie is just Mr Night’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Mr Night is obviously the processing plant overseer, and he’s a damn good one. The plant is being built on schedule for harvesting the Earth within the alloted time frame Balem gave him. 

Then Balem shows up with his hundreds of t-rex cannon-armed guards and his hella creepy andriod sled and his overt Oedipal issues, and starts whisper-shouting about his mother’s recurrence, and how he needs to harvest the Earth fucking  _tomorrow_. 

Balem doesn’t even mention the beautiful fabric Mr Night personally picked out for his antigravity throne in the throne room, he really likes that fabric, it’s nice fabric. He chose it because it complements Balem’s eyes. But  _of course_ Balem doesn’t even notice.

Mr Night gets whisper-shouted at left and right, his team of space-dragon employees is co-opted for henchman duty, suddenly he has to have the plant ready for full harvesting capacity  _right fucking now_ , and then they find out that the recurrence has reclaimed her title and the Earth doesn’t even belong to Balem anymore.

The final indignity: Mr Night gets sent down to Earth to pick up the recurrence and her family. 

He is  _not_ a goddamn golden retriever-splice, to be sent to fetch something, he is a rat-splice that excels at building and nesting,  _this is beyond the pale_.

And all of is why, when he’s sitting in Jupiter’s house on earth, waiting for her to show up so he can blackmail her on behalf of Balem(and stewing in all of the indignities that have been visited upon him during the last few days), Mr Night finds the bottle of vodka that cousin Vladie hid in the couch cushions and gets completely hammered. 


End file.
